The Dragon's Trail: The Biography of Raphael's Masterpiece (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Van Dyck, Order of the Garter, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Now in the collection at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., Raphael's St. George and the Dragon was a thank-you gift from Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, to Henry VII in 1506 for making him a knight of the Order of the Garter (St. George was the order's patron saint). The work has had a complex, contested ownership, including Charles I, French financier Pierre Crozat, Catherine the Great, Joseph Stalin and Andrew Mellon. Pitman (On Blondes), photography critic for the Times of London, enthusiastically unravels this provenance in a skillfully paced, energetically written account that reads like a detective story, though her deep research includes archives from the Hermitage and interviews with prominent historians. Pitman's portrait of Raphael is vivid if familiar, describing a precocious, highly ambitious and financially astute artist-courtier who was a bitter rival of Michelangelo, a committed womanizer and consummate professional whose death, according to Vasari, resulted from "an excessive bout of lovemaking." Pitman has a broader aim beyond this one painting: she wants to demystify art and art history. The epilogue is an ode to public museums that allow not just rulers but ordinary people to view masterpieces of art. But Pitman's passion for Raphael's painting and for the investigative process is infectious and the book's greatest strength. (Apr. 17)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Art history for the general reader comes no more stylishly packaged than this. Pitman pursues historical truth, yet makes it read as a thriller."-- Country Life (UK) --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone (April 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743265130
• ISBN-13: 978-0743265133
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,073,141 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #12 in

  Books > Arts & Photography > Museums & Collections > Art Curatorship

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A book to skim fast, August 10, 2008

By	John P. Perhonis (University Park, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Dragon's Trail: The Biography of Raphael's Masterpiece (Paperback)

Unfortunately i have to mostly agree with several of the other reviews on this site that gave this book poor ratings. The Dragon's Trail: The Biography of Raphael's Masterpiece, which Ms. Pitman claims is "kind of personal journey of discovery," and in which she characterizes herself as neither a "professional art historian or a scholar" depicts Raphael's painting of St. George and the Dragon as an art "object." She traces the "historical journey" of the painting from its original rendering by Raphael in the early 16th century through its present resting place in the National Gallery, Washington DC. She employs three basic approaches in her narrative: one, the presentation of historical information in a readable fashion, two, depiction of personal experience and travel, and, three, imaginative rendering of "what it must have been like." The idea has potential, but the approach, in the pen of Ms. Pitman, ends up mostly as fluff because she is unable to satisfactorily weave together fact and imaginative writing. It is the third of the three approaches that significantly detracts from an otherwise informative account. When she manages a paragraph or two of just plain factual writing, it isn't bad. We get interesting information presented in a readable and straight-forward manner. But she wants to hold the general reader's interest with a non-academic, imaginative rendering of "what it must have been like." This is the part that reeks of cliches and bad writing. The writing is so transparently patronizing of "what is must have been like," as rendered with strings of facile sensate images, and hyperbolic words, that I somehow feel that Ms. Pitman had intended these parts for a pre-teenage audience. But if so, it is especially important not to expose this age group, of all audiences, to bad taste in writing. On the other hand, if intended for a larger general audience, which is likely the case, one can't render a non-specialist account simply by asserting this is the intention. The ability to write regardless of the intention is the first requirement. And this ability is simply not there, at least in this book. I believe that Ms. Pittman is not concious that she is exercerising bad taste in writing in these parts, which are abundant. The result, unfortunately, is a pretty bad book mostly because it conceived and portrayed as much more than just a cheap romance novel. I suggest for those readers interested in the subject and the theme, that they skim the book, holding their eyes and nose when they get to the "literary" parts. Get the information and run, so to speak. It is also worth noting that Ms. Pittman, in her Acknowledgements section, indicates that her husband was dying of cancer during the writing of this book. This may explain, in part, the unconscious rendering of objectively bad writing. How much can a person duly focus on the task during a period like this? Perhaps Ms. Pittman's deeper self was engaged outside the writing. In this regard, she is to be commended for pulling this off. I remember reading John Gunther's book, Death Be Not Proud, about the death of his son. There are sections of that book that are really strained. One has to ease off in one's criticism in cases like these. It doesn't make an excuse for bad writing, but it does say, people endure by doing what they have to do, and the result is mixed. That's the way I come down on this book, which I will finish reading in the way I describe above.

4.0 out of 5 stars St. George and the Dragon Gallop Through History, December 5, 2008

By	Diane E. Kramer (Port Tobacco, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Dragon's Trail: The Biography of Raphael's Masterpiece (Paperback)

This book reads like a fast-paced historical novel. Next week I am spending a day at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. My first stop will be to see St. George and the Dragon.